The Last Bulb On The Christmas Tree

THE LAST BULB ON THE CHRISTMAS TREE



"Gnostics such as the Nasoræans believe the Pira Rabba is the source, origin, and container of all things, which is filled by the Mânâ Rabbâ, the Great Spirit, from which emanates the First Life. The First Life prays for companionship and progeny, whereupon the Second Life, the Ultra Mkayyema or World-constituting Æon, the Architect of the Universe, comes into being. From this architect come a number of æons, who erect the universe under the foremanship of the Mandâ d'Hayye or gnôsis zoês, the Personified Knowledge of Life." - from the Wikipedia page on the Great Architect of the Universe.

The death of one's child is likely one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. No matter what level of cynicism one might have regarding the world around them, the genetic imprint of one's self generated through the lens of birth is a stunning mirror of one's entire life and potentiality. To see this potential cut short at such a young age, to imagine a young child suffering and dying, not being there to protect them, this is the deepest material cut to one's own feeling of existence. The feeling of injustice, life cut short. It is the sort of thing that makes people question the meaning of life itself, the justice within nature, and the idea of how there could be an Architect who could allow such cruelty. So often pleasure and happiness are associated with what is good in life, but it is not pleasure and happiness (certainly not that of humans, at least) that makes the Universe operate. Our lives are a carefully constructed balance between sentimentality and a slide towards meaninglessness as our symbols of comfort corrode during the journey of corporeal existence.

"It's an enduring, epic mystery. Everybody would like to know who killed little JonBenet." - legal analyst Craig Silverman interviewed for television news.



The tree has been a symbol of humanity and its relation to nature and the heavens since the dawn of time. The druid cultures had a multitude of rituals that were designed utilizing trees and other plant life... they did not expressly worship trees so much as the spirit of life and creation that they were emanations of. The use of the tree in celebration of the Solstice is an ancient practice, resulting in the modern translation of fields of Evergreens being chopped down to be decorated in the homes of everyday Americans. The Scandanavian cultures viewed the map of all known existence in the form of a world tree... to the tops of its branches was the home of the Gods. At the roots and the feet of the tree was worms and death, the gruesome and truest fertilizer. The rotating Ourobouros, child of the unholy union of Loki and a giantess, turning the world on its axis. At the roots of this is a closely-related and deeply understood relationship between balance and sacrifice. Often-times, when confronted with horror and suffering in one's own personal life of the highest magnitude, the easiest option is to comfort one's self in either sentimentality ("they are in heaven now") or cynicism ("the world is a terrible place"), when the truth of the matter is that we are dealing with the machinations of a Universe that seeks to teach us and make us stronger.

"Because religious ascetics looked upon the universe itself as an evil and ensnaring fabrication, they also came to regard its very Creator as a weaver of delusions. Thus the great sea monster (the world) and its Maker (the Demiurgus), whose strength is derived from the Dragon of Cosmic Power, came to be personified as a beast of horror and destruction, seeking to swallow up the immortal part of human nature." - Manly P. Hall, "Secret Teachings Of All The Ages"

There has always been a void, a pit of (what some call) evil below civilization. Humanity has gone from being bone-throwing savages to achieving space travel in a relatively short span of time. This is largely the result of a drive within many who have held on to secret knowledge over the centuries of known civilization, who have carried on an urge toward democracy, and against despotism. Not unimportant when discussing the subject is the perceived influence of beings that can be described as non-human entities on the influence of development in humanity. If anything at all, the great religions (which have influenced culture in ways that transcend the folly of their organization) have one thing in common- an attribution of knowledge received in connection to a divine intelligence. Those who follow these religions each consider the Being that they are praying to to be God, creator of the Universe. However, a counter-belief that many of the early (pre-Romanized) Christians had is that perhaps the Creator of our world does not necessarily follow the order of the larger Universe, and is a being closer to a parasitic tester of humanity's inherent good will. Translated from Hebraic documents there is a word for adversary, Satan. He is worshiped as Shaitan by the Yezidi desert-dwelling people... they believed that Shaitan was the ruler of this world, and must be appeased in a material way. The Gnostics viewed this adversary as a tester of humanity, a parasite that shared with us a mind because of a genetic connection of some manner of creation. The belief is that the Demiurge (as they referred to him) was allowed to exist in order to test the limits of human compassion has a reflection in the Catholic Church's concept of "original sin." Although it makes no sense from the literal standpoint of the Church, it reflects a connection between humanity and its very own drive toward self-destruction. A parasite is allowed to torture us and feed us in order to make us stronger, separating the wheat from the chaff. Just as pleasure exists and makes us feel "good," it seems that there is a balance on the Earth that dictates an equal amount of strife and pain must also exist on the Earth. Western society, largely Christian by nature of foundation of the Roman Catholic expansion (ironically begun by the same power that initially killed the supposed historical Christ), has sought to separate itself from the suffering that continues to grow throughout the world. There are places on the Earth where hard-working, kind people are killed mercilessly every day, children starve to death, animals are tortured/exploited/abused, humans are raped, degraded, imprisoned, immolated, etc. etc. etc.. day in and day out without end.
Certainly, there are aspects of our modern environment that are inherently parasitic. Thanks to the now-deceased Steve Jobs (may he rest in peace), the cultural standard is now to accompany oneself with a small robotic device that both costs money on a regular basis as well as compelling the owner to endeavor toward other constant (unnecessary) expendetures. Technology seems to advance meticulously at the rate that it can be sold, depleting hours and energy from its owners. A major use for technology is the distribution of information, much of it of a dubious nature. The state of news media manipulation and its effect on the common mind has gotten to an epidemic point. It is no wonder that 2012 became a year filled with entertainment regarding zombies, because the audience clearly can see themselves reflected in the flickering images before them. Once a news story enters into the public consciousness in America today, it is re-iterated and reconstituted ad nauseum until the true meaning becomes lost in a whirlwind of rhetoric and catchphrases. A few people's tragedy becomes property of the many in an effort to capitalize on the human desire to understand the nature of mortality and "good and evil." A barrage of phony experts are trotted out to explain to the simple public in the most insulting terms available, to a crowd of American more than happy to wallow in the misery of another. The truth of the matter is that, unreported, somewhere else in the world there is suffering, pain, heartache, and misery. It is in many ways a major part of the language of the world and of nature. It is only those so pacified with privilege that they are blinded to the meaning of life who are shocked at the brutal nature of the animalistic tendencies within man and the unforgiving force of nature. The truth of the matter is ugly: we are selfish, we are mean, we are animals inside. We hate and we fear, we covet, we regret. These are the bad things that you can do to yourself, and your mind is more than willing to take you there if you are not guiding yourself. It is the meaning of life that we must face suffering, encounter pain and loss, and accept that we must learn and somehow contribute to the world in th face of that. It is the very uncool act of continuing to love others and try to help them past their own pain that makes the world an ok place to live in. Life is for many on the Earth pain and slavery, this is something not to dwell on but to be knowledgeable of. Anything less than awareness of this fact is to dwell in the recesses of illusion. It is in these recesses where parasites do dwell.

“A healthy and pure person cannot become obsessed by them, because such Larvæ can only act upon men if the later make room for them in their minds. A healthy mind is a castle that cannot be invaded without the will of its master; but if they are allowed to enter, they excite the passions of men and women, they create cravings in them, they produce bad thoughts which act injuriously upon the brain; they sharpen the animal intellect and suffocate the moral sense. Evil spirits obsess only those human beings in whom the animal nature is predominating. Minds that are illuminated by the spirit of truth cannot be possessed; only those who are habitually guided by their own lower impulses may become subjected to their influences.” - from "Paracelsus", by Franz Hartmann.

A Quabbalistic belief is that, before we were born into this world, we sat by the side of 'God' in some capacity... the Creator of the Universe, the Architect Him/Herself, and your little glowing Monad of a soul/being/awareness were tight bros, and always had been. Sitting around the wading pool or whatever, hanging out with God, your little spirit got a glimpse of this planet, all the pain and heartache, all of the bad stuff and all of the fun-looking stuff, and for whatever reason you, you the reader, you yourself, built up the gall to ask God to send you down to this problematic little war-zone of a floating rock that we like to call Planet Earth so that you could use your divine perception and awareness to help everybody and make everything better. God, being very wise of course, told you that its not so easy, that you would be born into a body and mind that would limit your awareness and suffocate your confidence. You however, being the irrepressible sort that you are, insisted that you would remember being next to Divinity, being a part of Harmony, the beauty of the limitless palace of the infinite.
"Well, OK." says God, and {!bloop!} there you are born into some screaming infant.
Your confidence in the face of doubt inspired God to let you have a chance in this hellhole of a planet. That's what some Quaballists believe at least.
So on the planet we are born, and we see all of this horrible stuff. Our mind is fraught with limitations. Language barriers, differences in religion and philosophy, economic struggles, all of these things are a collection of difficulties in advancement that add up to one big, seemingly unsurmountable problem, which the media and other mind control outlets seek to exploit.

"The Ramsey's home, which had a red brick Tudor facade, contained 6,866 square feet of living space, and nearly filled a half-acre lot. There was no fence surrounding the property. The front of the house was built in 1927, and the rear was added later and had been remodeled several times over the years. A back elevator had been replaced with a spiral staircase when the Ramseys renovated the house in 1992. The floor plan was a maze, and the decorating was unusual; flowered carpets, thick white moldings, vivid colors."

For example, the 1990s were fraught with many enduring stories of tragedy that were heavily exploited by the media, such as the murder of hundreds of American citizens in Waco, Texas by the BATF, the trial of OJ Simpson, the (conspicuously prolific) mass shootings at Columbine High School, the Unabomber case, and many others, but the one that endures the most over time is the story of the murder of little beauty pageant star JonBenet Ramsey.

"JonBenet's closet was stuffed with clothes. A small TV set with a built-in VCR sat on a shelf inside her closet. Other shelves had dozens of cartoon and Shirley Temple videos. To the right of the closet stood a pageant trophy as tall as the light switch. Another trophy was even taller. There was a floor-to-ceiling Christmas tree in the room..." - Lawrence Schiller, "Perfect Murder, Perfect Town."

Likely one of the most heavily reported and least understood murder cases of the 1990s, widespread speculation has emerged from the miasma of confusion surrounding the events that took place in the Ramsey home on December 25th, 1996. The facts of the case have been repeated ad infinitum in media outlets both legitimate and clandestine. The affluent and well-respected family had attended a Christmas party at their friends house (Fleet White) on the night in question, and according to the family, they quickly went to bed afterwards. Not a creature was stirring throughout the house... except, of course, for someone who had caused the young girl to make a loud scream in the night (at around 2:00 A.M.), which was reported by several of the Ramsey's neighbors (who were interviewed separately the following day and without previous collusion). Morning arrives, and upon discovering a "ransom note" (an oddly worded piece of literature that shows strong evidence of being written by JonBenet's mother Patsy Ramsey [even Patsy's own mother stated that the handwriting matched that of Patsy]), the family immediately contacted authorities and several family friends (despite the fact that the note expressly forbade the Ramsey's to do so at the penalty of decapitation of their daughter). As the police made their way around the house, early in the morning John Ramsey and his friend Fleet White (whose odd presence was needed for some as yet undisclosed reason) searched the basement. This was possibly the second time that Ramsey had been down there that morning, according to investigators on the scene.
While all of this was happening, the police were pondering the rather bizarre content of the ransom note: "Mr. Ramsey, Listen carefully! We are a group of individuals that represent a small foreign faction. We do respect your bussiness [sic] but not the country that it serves. At this time we have your daughter in our posession [sic]. She is safe and unharmed and if you want her to see 1997, you must follow our instructions to the letter. You will withdraw $118,000.00 from your account. $100,000 will be in $100 bills and the remaining $18,000 in $20 bills. Make sure that you bring an adequate size attache to the bank. When you get home you will put the money in a brown paper bag. I will call you between 8 and 10 am tomorrow to instruct you on delivery. The delivery will be exhausting so I advise you to be rested. If we monitor you getting the money early, we might call you early to arrange an earlier delivery of the money and hence a [sic] earlier delivery pick-up of your daughter. Any deviation of my instructions will result in the immediate execution of your daughter. You will also be denied her remains for proper burial. The two gentlemen watching over your daughter do not particularly like you so I advise you not to provoke them. Speaking to anyone about your situation, such as Police, F.B.I., etc., will result in your daughter being beheaded. If we catch you talking to a stray dog, she dies. If you alert bank authorities, she dies. If the money is in any way marked or tampered with, she dies. You will be scanned for electronic devices and if any are found, she dies. You can try to deceive us but be warned that we are familiar with law enforcement countermeasures and tactics. You stand a 99% chance of killing your daughter if you try to out smart [sic] us. Follow our instructions and you stand a 100% chance of getting her back. You and your family are under constant scrutiny as well as the authorities. Don't try to grow a brain John. You are not the only fat cat around so don't think that killing will be difficult. Don't underestimate us John. Use that good southern common sense of yours. It is up to you now John! Victory! S.B.T.C"



At around 1:00 PM, while police were sectioning off JonBenet's room for clues left behind by the kidnapper, an officer suggested to the nervous and pacing John Ramsey to search the house and look for clues in order to give the understandably worried man something to do. Surprisingly, Mr. Ramsey went straight to the basement, quickly finding JonBenet's body behind a small door in the wine cellar. Her hands were bound above her head and tied to a wooden garrote, with a cord wrapped around her neck. The nylon rope used to tie her up was purchased from a hardware store several days before on Patsy Ramsey's American Express card. Someone had drawn a small red heart on the girl's wrist and wrapped her in her 'special blanket' (an oddly caring touch to such a brutal crime scene). The blanket had on it pubic hair not belonging to any member of the family. The girl's mouth was covered with duct tape (in the same manner as little Caylee Anthony, the murdered child who would capture the nation's imagination over ten years later). Although the Ramsey's were spared the oddly specific $118,000 expense being asked by the supposed kidnappers (and incidentally $118,000 happened to be the exact amount of Mr. Ramsey's awarded bonus from work that year), their daughter was no longer going to be celebrating any future Christmases in the Ramsey household. John Ramsey carried the body upstairs, uttering "My baby, my little angel" over and over again. Patsy made her way over to the body and began to embrace it, shocked and under deep scrutiny from the observing officers. The police who were present immediately called for backup, declaring a "Code Black" (police code for murder). One of John Ramsey's first reactions to finding the body was to quickly dial his pilot and inform him to prepare his plane for Atlanta. Upon hearing this, the police told Ramsey that he will not be allowed to leave the state.
Many clues on the scene suggest that a murder was committed by someone inside the house. Despite being surrounded by snowfall, there were no footprints to be found to indicate the presence of an intruder, leading police to suspect the murderer as being possibly aided someone from within the family, if not a person within the household. Although the police sectioned off the little girls bedroom looking for signs of the intruder, the Ramseys and their friends were allowed to roam the house freely, possibly tampering with a multitude of pieces of evidence. The Ramsey parents refused interviews with the police and even denied them the ability to turn over phone records with a self-righteous indignation, actions that would usually place people under extreme suspicion from law enforcement officials.

"On July 30th., 1993, Brett Cantor, owner of the Dragonfly club in Hollywood frequented by Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman, was murdered in his apartment. The killer's M.O. was remarkably similar to that In the Simpson case: multiple stabbings with a stiletto followed by a slashed throat. An attempt by the Simpson defense team to discuss the Cantor murder at Simpson's preliminary hearing was denied by Judge Lance Ito... It is a common practice for programmers to install directed energy equipment inside television sets (of jurors). Depending upon the frequencies broadcast, the percipient may either hear voices internally, or perceive the information subliminally." - from the article "Mind Control Killers" by Brian Desbourough

At this point the cynical mind kicks in and, pointing to the evidence, wishes to openly declare the guilt as obviously existing between the parents. However on the body of the little girl was evidence of sexual abuse (going back further than the night in question, in fact), and disturbingly there was DNA left behind on her clothing by a person who was not a member of the Ramsey family. So either someone was allowed into the house whose DNA this was, or she was brought to someone who was performing these activities with her shortly before her death. Many investigators find it strange that immediately after the police were contacted, two sets of close family friends were called to arrive on the scene at around 5:50 in the morning, coinciding with the arrival of the police. Regardless of how close of friends the Ramseys were with the White or Fernie families, the presence of those people simply acted to confuse and disturb the police investigation, ultimately acting as a contributor to the multitude of disruptions and tampering of evidence that the Ramsey family seems to have orchestrated on the morning after Christmas 1996.
The little girl had been a prized possession of the Ramseys throughout her short life. As part of her early life she was dressed in alluring clothes and made to perform routines at "beauty contests" from a very young age. The photographs and videos of these events inundated the public during the reporting of the case that enveloped the media in early 1997, becoming a strangely pornographic language eagerly eaten up by the late Clinton-era American public. Patsy herself was brought up within the pageant system from a very young age, and it was her influence that . In fact, in a review of one of her performances a commentator described her as a "little automaton." According to a family friend Pam Griffin, who made many of the costumes that the little girl wore at pageants, a distraught and tranquilized Patsy made some disturbing comments to her just two days after the murder. Patsy reached to Pam's face and deliriously asked "Couldn't you fix this for me? ... We didn't mean for this to happen."

“(The case is that of) a child’s murder with ritualistic overtones. Mrs. Ramsey’s motives and post incident actions cannot be understood with rational thought. This crime was committed by a delusional individual who has convinced herself of her own innocence. Sociopaths always view their violent actions as justified. When a divine intervention is added to this justification pathology, you have a highly volatile individual... We believe that Patsy Ramsey is a delusional sociopath. Based on our experience with religious sociopaths, we believe that she saw JonBenet’s death as a sacrifice for sins she had committed.” - from the case profile by private firm SARAPH, INC. given to Boulder, Colorado police in 1998

Throughout the investigation, the media interpretation of the events continued to level skepticism toward the innocence of the parents. The crime seemed completely bizarre and meaningless, and the suffering endured by the little girl before her death was unfathomable to most Americans. Children die every day in America, and when the Atlanta Child Murders occurred we certainly were not inundated with the images of the victims the same way that JonBenets face and body have been presented by the media for human consumption. Her little smile, leotard outfits revealing her tiny legs, the garish details of the case, were reiterated for months and continue to be the symbols with which this story is told. A morbid fascination quickly grew to an addicts volume of consumption.

"Evil on this scale is impossible to comprehend. To know who murdered JonBenét Ramsey is to know what world we live in, where we are."
- James R. Gaines, former managing editor, Time Magazine, January 20, 1997 issue

THE LOOK OF LOVE



The girl's mother Patsy Ramsey was an Evangelical Christian who was very intensely connected to a metaphysical interpretation of the Gospels. She experienced a bout with cancer before the death of her daughter that had her in the hospital for an extended time (almost ten years later, she would die from ovarian cancer, in June of 2006). During this time, she availed herself of much Evangelical Christian literature relating to healing and dealing with internal pain through scripture. In particular, this literature dealt with a concept of Christ's victory over human death and suffering by His death on the cross. This is referred to in evangelical literature with an acronym: S.B.T.C. or "Saved By The Cross."
Jesus' 'victory' over suffering through his death on the cross (and subsequent resurrection) not only promises to heal the saved of their suffering, but also heal them of their sins. In fact, the basic principal of the Evangelical literature that Ramsey was reading is based around an Old Testament concept that those who gravitate toward religious literature are saved already ahead of time by God, and that they must only "accept Jesus Christ into their heart as their personal saviour" in order to avoid punishment and suffering in this life and the next. The ransom note begins by claiming the "kidnappers" (an absurd concept once we know that the child is already dead in the wine cellar) are from a "small foreign faction." A movie about kidnappers working for a similar type of organization aired on local Boulder television earlier that night. An of course, the bottom of the note was signed with the phrase "S.B.T.C." followed by the word "Victory."

"The Lord is God, and he has made his light shine upon us. With boughs in hand, bind the festal sacrifice with ropes to the horns of the altar." - Psalm 118, verse 27

According to the Bible, in the days of Abraham a sacrifice was necessary for the Hebrew people to appease God. This meant binding a living creature with cords and slaughtering them on an altar, allowing the blood to be spilled for the consumption of a caring and loving God. Famously, Abraham (father of all Hebrew people) himself was asked by God personally to murder his own son Isaac as a sacrifice to the lord, stopping short just at the final moment to inform old Abe that he had won a special loyalty prize and that he could let his son go. Later in the next section of that same book, God theoretically sent his own son to the Earth to be killed by other people. Catholics and many other Christians believe that this sacrifice supercedes the need to offer animal sacrifice to God, and that Jesus acts as an intercession between humanity and God for this purpose. However, the notion of sacrifice and "longsuffering" are noted as virtues in all variations of Christianity, and Evangelical sects often meditate on the concept of blood sacrifice, using the death of Christ to illustrate this, referring to him as the "lamb of God." This becomes, for the believer, a deeply positive connection with the concepts of suffering and human sacrifice. In this way, Christianity is a blood sacrifice religion that meditates on the concept as a main theme of the religion, but does not overtly condone such activity "in the flesh" since God himself made the "ultimate sacrifice" in the form of his "only begotten son."

"Despite all the talk of an intruder in the district, I was never afraid for my own kids. You can put all the spin' on it you want, but if an 'intruder' came into my home, and a scream of that nature was heard by several of the neighbors, I'm responsible for the death of my child. Period." - Scott Gibbons, neighbor of the Ramsey family.

There are reports that little JonBenet, shortly before her death, complained of robed figures hurting her in the dark, similar to descriptions that other children have made in the past alleging of what is commonly referred to as "Satanic Ritual Abuse." Indeed, her body showed signs of sexual trauma that occurred before the murder. Oddly, after the little girl was killed, someone continued to abuse her body with one of Patsy Ramsey's paintbrushes, which was identified by forensic scientists. An attorney in Boulder came to the District Attorney on the case with a witness from California that had some very unusual allegations. She told the authorities, in particular D.A. Alex Hunter, that she had been part of a multi-generational sex ring from the time that she was a young girl. She said that the markings and injuries on Jonbenet were consistent with sexual asphyxiation techniques that she was forced to go through by high-ranking businessmen not unlike Mr. Ramsey. She said that she was trained to dress provacatively and make seductive movements not unlike the young JonBenet. In fact, Christmas night was one of the nights that the parties would occur where she was used for these sorts of purposes. In addition to this, she said that Fleet White Sr. (father of John Ramsey's friend Fleet White) was her mother's godfather, and the White family was closely tied in with her own. The timing of the situation and the relation to the White family was not lost on Hunter, who began to investigate these leads but then quickly and abruptly ended up resigning from his post. Fleet White himself, in the end, was found to be not be a DNA match to that evidence found on the young girl's body. Both of the adult Ramsey parents were very well-connected people, John Ramsey having a business purchased by Lockheed Martin and Patsy Ramsey's father was an engineer for Union Carbide, so the association with another prominent family across the country was not out of the question. Patsy Ramsey herself experienced the is now with her maker and savior, having passed away in 2006. Mr. Ramsey, who coincidentally lived in Atlanta during the years of the Atlanta Child Murders, is now dating the mother of former Aruba tourist Natalee Holloway.

PREPARE YE THE WAY OF THE LORD



"God, Who is the first principle of all things, may be compared to things created as the architect is to things designed (ut artifex ad artificiata)." - St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae

To imagine what happened that night in the darkness is to enter into the realms of obsession where the polite mind does not often willingly go. The time between 1:30 and 4:00 AM is a time when the restless are awake, a prime time for occurrences of murder and other antisocial acts committed out of the view of sunlight. In the darkness, late in the night, as the Ramseys claimed to all be sleeping, JonBenet was taken from her bed by someone who we can determine was definitely not Santa Claus or one of his elves. Her little head is bludgeoned in a severely painful traumatic instant, likely leading to the scream that was reported by neighbors. In the darkness, as someone carried her past the lights of the still-glowing Christmas tree, through the house she was taken to the wine cellar, where she would have her final resting place behind a small door, covered from the cold by her favorite blanket. The girl had been experiencing night traumas for some time leading up until her death, causing her to have documented bladder control issues, as well as expressing fear in private to adults in her life. What we as the public see in the videos and photographs of the tiny girl singing and dancing is a very stilted and trained young person who is trapped in a world beyond her understanding. It is apparent that one way or another the girl was enduring disturbing events in her own life, the extent of which is possibly detailed in the testimony of what sounds like a rather valuable witness, the lady from California who was alleging of experiencing systemized abuse at the hands of a family connected to friends of the Ramseys. The District Attorney Hunter deemed her an "extremely credible" witness due to her lucidity and access to facts, but she never made it to a courtroom, since no one was put on trial for the murder of JonBenet.

"In 1976, mobster Johny Roselli testified before a congressional committee; shortly after, his body was discovered in an oil drum floating near Don Aronow's boat factory. Rosselli, who was also a CIA asset, testified before the Frank Church Watergate Hearing in 1974. Presumably in order to contain information sensitive to the CIA, Roselli associate Irving Pasternak and his wife, were discovered dead in bed at their home in Waterbury, Connecticut, with their throats slashed." - from the article "Mind Control Killers" by Brian Desbourough

The legend of John The Baptist (essentially the namesake of the Baptist Church) tells the story of a martyr who paved the way for the saviour of the Christian people. Suffering and martyrdom are certainly attributes closely associated with the Christian Church, but it is from a long lineage of Pagan Martyrs that this tradition arises. Jesus Christ (or John the Baptizer for that matter) was far from the first of these divine God-men who suffered and were crucified for their attempt to alleviate the suffering of humans... others in the long list include Prometheus, Horus, Indra, Mithras, Osiris, Pythagoras, and Apollo. Because of the nature of pleasures, there must be pain to coincide and create a balance in this world. The suffering seems to very much define our existence, mainly because we can identify and seek to extend the lack of suffering in our own lives and the lives of others. It is suffering and difficulty, the struggle of existence in the world at large, that defines us all. It is only when one forgets this, and loses the general sensitivity required for a vigilance of awareness, that such events can become shocking. Suffering is all around us, and it is the reaction to it and the way that we deal with it that defines who we are. A greater path for existence, a life worth living, requires that we both acknowledge this fact and simultaneously seek to improve the world as it appears to us.

"There is a killer on the loose... I don't know who it is, I don't know if it's a he or a she, but if I were a resident of Boulder, I would tell my friends to keep... to keep your babies close to you. There's someone out there." - Patsy Ramsey, interviewed on CNN shortly after the discovery of her daughter's body in her basement wine cellar.

Back to the druids, and their concept of the tree, in many ways it relates to the tradition of chopping down a Christmas tree. It is a remembrance of the sacrifice required of our mortal existence... a reminder of everything that we have lost and will lose. The druid priest caste believed that the soul was immortal, and different from a 'ghost'. Once the soul leaves the body it can enter into the body of another forming human, and this was a practice that was alleged to be achieved scientifically. The soul was believed to be an essence that was made up of the very vitality of our existence, similar to a castle that we build for ourselves to dwell in. The soul is the sum total of the karma of this and previous lives up until this point... although we seek to leave this world behind, as we experience the lessons of suffering we learn to appreciate what is there in our lives rather than to lament what is not.



The druidic priesthoods lineage of knowledge is not (as commonly believed) limited to race of the Celtic people. The ideals of societal advancement and democratic thought are, according to Plato, actually carried on from the sunken cultures of Atlantis and Lumeria and through the classical civilizations such as Greece and Rome from ancient Mesopotamia. A resurgent atavism of these values is reflected in the creation of America and the formation of a country not bound by the creed or doctrine of one man or belief system. The tree is humanity, reaching to the heavens but bound by the Earth, roots mired in the dirt and the filth that is the wellspring of corporeal existence. The suffering can come in the form of unexplainable loss, and when it does it puts us in touch with the larger suffering and loss that we so easily grow out of touch with in times of comfort. It is a reminder of who we are, and the limitations of our time on the Earth, a reminder to use the time that we have to extend some level of greater awareness within ourselves and among those around us. The crucifixion is in this way a symbol of our own "salvation" from pettiness and small-mindedness by the pain and suffering of the seemingly indifferent Universe. Trapped in the prison of the mind, it becomes easy to confuse the Universe's attempt to communicate this knowledge with random signals. Death is always there to remind you to strive for something better for yourself and others while you still have time. There is no more time other than right now to appreciate what you do have in your life and what you can accomplish, and the people that you meet who deserve your love are all a part of that as well. The world may seem like a horrible place sometimes, and maybe it is, but the horror is relative to our own experience and ability to measure pleasure against pain. The most terrifying concept of the Universe is that it does not care about you the individual, and that consciousness is simply a candle in the darkness soon to be snuffed out. Still, while the light is burning, there is always something to see, something to learn from the images flickering before us in the darkness.



Images by Vanessa Totenblom
All writing by Joseph Gates: josephthomasgates@gmail.com

Mystery Babylon

MYSTERY BABYLON



"Lady of all the divine powers, resplendent light, righteous woman clothed in radiance, beloved of An and Urac! Mistress of heaven, with the great pectoral jewels, who loves the good headdress befitting the office of en priestess, who has seized all seven of its divine powers! My lady, you are the guardian of the great divine powers! You have taken up the divine powers, you have hung the divine powers from your hand. You have gathered up the divine powers, you have clasped the divine powers to your breast. Like a dragon you have deposited venom on the foreign lands. When like Ickur you roar at the earth, no vegetation can stand up to you. As a flood descending upon those foreign lands, powerful one of heaven and earth, you are their Inanna."
- from the "Exultation To Inanna" ancient Sumeria, author unknown

As we head towards the new year, our culture grows more and more oriented toward the mysteries of the feminine. The Goddess is a powerful driving force of civilization, fickle but mostly fair, at times directing fierce lust and vengeance. She implores women to adorn themselves with facial make-up like sexual warpaint. She encourages lust and want, both representing an urge toward that as well as representing a force that absorbs and gains power from such emotions. In the truest sense, she is immortal, a lust that is never satiated that is fed over centuries over the bodies of humans who underestimate the fleeting nature of mortal existence. She is the Goddess that governs our world and our culture, the secret myth revealed upon itself through the daily existence of men.
In the East, she is known as Kali, the destroyer. Her blood-red lips and extended tongue have become the logo for the British rock band The Rolling Stones, a once-relevent, now geriatric group of men doomed to live out their adolescence until death. She smiles and laps up the returns. Hell's Angels stabbing a man to death in a crowded melee, attempted statutory rape at a friend's house, acting like an idiot on Saturday Night Live, she watches over and protects her investments. What might seem like a harmless rock and roll band works as an agent of social change with the Goddess' own seal of approval. Her earliest names are Lili, Lilitu, Loli/Lola, Inanna, Ishtar. Her reoccurring motifs are the owl and the crescent moon. Her temple is sacred prostitution, sexual exploration, homosexuality, transformation of the human form. An alchemical relationship with the human body. If Wilhelm Riech had been a little less paranoid, a little more of a team player (like Kinsey was), he would have gone far in the furthering of her goals. Instead, he remains one of the only people to have their written works burned by the United States Government.
In Mesopotamian culture the Lilitu were said to be demons that caused unwanted sexual feelings to arise... Pazuzu was a wind spirit whose power was able to chase away the Lilitu, harpy-like female beings with human-bird hybrid bodies. These demonic, lustful characters seem to be the inspiration for the Hebraic character of Lilith, who actually emerges from a parodic text written by someone from that culture. A famous image, called the Burney Relief, depicts a female figure whose identity is disputed. Her breasts are bare, and she has wings and the feet of a bird. Owls are by her side and in her hand is a rod with a ring in the middle. She grips it and stares directly ahead at the viewer...
Inanna and Ishtar are the names that were given to the Goddess in two manifestations of the Mesopotamian culture, and in Greek and Roman civilizations many of her attributes co-incide with those of Aphrodite and Venus (respectively). The eight-pointed star is her symbol, possibly due to the appearance of Venus as it occulted the Sun during ancient times. The moon is often depicted as her symbol, and imagery from Katy Perry sitting on a crescent moon to the Virgin Mary with one at her feet seem to reference her power. In Jean Genet's memoir of living among the Palestinians, he mentions seeing a procession of individuals carrying a banner of a virgin with a crescent moon, and falsely assuming it to be the Virgin Mother of the Christian pantheon. He was surprised to discover that she was a local deity of the nearby community of fishermen, and that she was "Our Lady Of The Lake." As Isis, she gave birth to a saviour God/man long before the emergence of the Roman Catholic faith. Some say that an Assyrian queen named Semiramis is the basis for these myths, but it seems that she is yet another persona of history to be swept up into the character of Our Lady. Her ancient power predates historical conjecture.
She is a symbol of new life, and as such also the destruction of the old way. Those who stick stubbornly to the old ways will perish, not understanding how to exist in the environment of the future. She will provide opportunities for growth and chage, and it is up to the individual to heed the lessons.

"If thou openest not the gate to let me enter,
I will break the door, I will wrench the lock,
I will smash the door-posts, I will force the doors.
I will bring up the dead to eat the living.
And the dead will outnumber the living."
- Ishtar's dialogue to the gatekeeper of the Underworld in the myth of Her descent into the Underworld.

Much like the Christian promise that the dead shall rise again at the end of time, the Goddess is in control of the undead legions. The weak of mind can be swayed by her guile, and she is never short of fodder for her Army. In the "Exultation Of Inana," she is descibed as the lady who rides upon a beast. In the Christian Book of Revelations, it is said that there is a lady in Heaven (the Virgin Mother Mary ala Isis) whose foot is on the head of the serpent, crushing it. One is also reminded of the story of Europa and the bull- a woman ravaged by a "sea bull," creating an unholy union of human and monster that apparently spawned the European peoples according to some obscure lore. She has always encouraged singing and praise, with the out-loud recitation of prayer being a powerful way to connect to the Goddess. She consumes the sorrow and praise of her worshippers and gives back in the form of love and understanding.
A form similar to the Burney Relief is what has been called the "Snake Goddess" of Knossos, a threatening Kali-like woman holding aloft a pair of snakes... researchers have connected the statue to artwork of both Astarte as well as Venus, but the exact identity of the deity depicted in the image is not known.
Some have traced the Goddess Worship cult back to the wife of Babylonian king Nimrod, Queen Semiramis. Semiramis was initially a brothel-keeper in a town called Erech, where she met Nimrod, and the two of them rose to power together somehow after founding a religious system based around astronomy. Semiramis was the controller of the religious hierarchy that was developed under Nimrod's rule, and she taught of a great serpent that was the world's creator, a powerful force of energy behind all things. The concept of the Lilith/Lilitu is different in many ways from the Goddess imagery that is directly associated with Inanna, Ishtar, and Semiramis, but both figures share certain animal symbolism as well as similar poses depicted in their carved effigies.

"You are bound and sealed,
all you demons and devils and liliths,
by that hard and strong,
mighty and powerful bond with which are tied Sison and Sisin....
The evil Lilith,
who causes the hearts of men to go astray
and appears in the dream of the night
and in the vision of the day,
Who burns and casts down with nightmare,
attacks and kills children,
boys an girls.
She is conquered and sealed
away from the house
and from the threshold of Bahram-Gushnasp son of Ishtar-Nahid
by the talisman of Metatron,
the great prince
who is called the Great Healer of Mercy....
who vanquishes demons and devils,
black arts and mighty spells
and keeps them away from the house
and threshold of Bahram-Gushnasp, son of Ishtar-Nahid.
Amen, Amen, Selah.
Vanquished are the black arts and mighty spells.
Vanquished the bewitching women,
they, their witchery and their spells,
their curses and their invocations,
and kept away from the four walls
of the house of Bahram-Gushnasp, the son of Ishtar-Hahid.
Vanquished and trampled down are the bewitching women --
vanquished on earth and vanquished in heaven.
Vanquished are their constellations and stars.
Bound are the works of their hands.
Amen, Amen, Selah."
- exorcism of Lilith found on a Persian bowl.



Warrior-like strength and magical witchery is a common theme in the early variations of the Goddess, keeping her in line with the concept of the Lilitu. Female power was scorned as demonic in a brutal society where patriarchical domination was the family structure and incest was a common reality. Lilith seems like an amorphous fiction, a transforming demonic force that represents the fears of a society that wished to demonize the female power of sexuality and extra-sensory perception. She is inhuman, and her power owns the night, seeping into everyone through their dreams and fantasies.
The earliest representation of the Goddess seems to be Inanna, a Sumerian figure. As in the Burney Relief, Inanna is depicted with her arms extended forward, palms flattened and fingers all pointed upward. An early depiction of her is on the Uruk Vase, where she is being brought food and drink by a cadre of naked men (not unlike Lady Gaga). In her time, Inanna was referred to as the "Queen Of Heaven," much like the Catholic Virgin Mary... she has been at times associated with a Hurrian Goddess named Hannahannah, possibly being a variation or development of the same persona. The eight-pointed star, later associated with Venus, first became used as a symbol specifically for Inanna during the Sumerian period- it is thought that the symbol was an approximation of the appearance of Venus (the planet) somehow occulting the sun during an historical celestial event. She is called both the "Morning Star" as well as the "Evening Star" due to her prominent location in the sky, names that are also at times associated with Lucifer. Similar to Lucifer, Inanna has both light and dark qualities: she is considered the Goddess of both physical lust and violence, as well as both growth and destruction. She is associated with childbirth and lustful activity, but not marriage. One of the most important factors that Inanna had on her side was knowledge... she got a great deal of knowledge from a particular incident involving Enki, the hero of the Epic Of Gilgamesh.
Back in the time of ancient Sumerian civilization, the Gods (off-planet beings? inter-dimensional entities? humanoids from the deep? there are many interpretations) supposedly kept all of their knowledge stored in archives called "Mes." Inanna was able to subdue Enki by getting him drunk and managed to make off with many of his Mes, giving her a vast amount of knowledge that had been previously unavailable to her people before then. It seems that Enki had gaurded the Mes very closely in order to retain his power, and Inanna's act of thievery was a significant advancement in the Democratization of sacred knowledge similar to Prometheus' theft of fire. Despite attempting to defeat her and retain the Mes using the aid of sea monsters, Enki was ultimately at a loss and Uruk would have the knowledge that he had so closely gaurded. A significant myth involving Inanna's descent into the underworld is used by the Sumerian people as an explanation for the seasons, similar to the story of Persephone in Greek Mythology. Ironically, in this story it is Enki who saves Inanna, despite her theft and deception. Her descent is marked by hard-headed and forthright action, and her reward is a violent death at the hands of Ershkegal, a hag-like manifestation of the Underworld who acts as a deliberator of mortality. In the end, Inanna ascends back to the land of the living, resurrected much in the manner of the disappearance and re-emergence of Venus in the sky... her story is an eternal saga of death and rebirth that acts as a lesson of mortality and a reminder of our connection to the spirit world.
Ishtar is the Babylonian and Akkadian manifestation of the spirit of Inanna, and it was in her courts that the temples of Sacred Prostitution were opened. Babylon has become synonymous with decadence and a certain level of debauchery, and it was under the auspices of the priests of Ishtar that this reputation was developed. Like Inanna, her gate was marked with lions and the eight-pointed star. Her descent into the Underworld was much more victorious than Inanna's, with Ishtar threatening to raise the dead in order to take what she believes is hers. As she descends into the Underworld, all sexual activity on the Earth ceases completely, suggesting that the Babylonian people believed that She was inherently tied into the current of all sexual energy on the Earth. This connects directly with the stories of the energy-symbolic serpent that Inanna's religion seems to refer to, a concept of "dragon energy" that sees the serpent as a symbolic representation of a more intangible energetic concept. Together, Ishtar and Inanna form the very core of the "Queen Of Heaven" concept that outlines the basic tenets of the Goddess.
She next shows up as the naked Mediterranean deity known as Astarte (also translated to Ashtaroth and mistaken for a demonic entity). Astarte is known for fighting off Ba'al, a similar role to the "Queen Of Heaven" in Revelations who fights off the serpent. Largely recognized as a nature deity, Astarte is the early predecessor to the Wiccan Mother Goddess talked about by many practicioners of modern witchcraft. On her head rests a crescent that acts as horns, and on her belly is a jewel that shines like fire.
Simultaneously, the lady seems to have split into the Greek and Egyptian pantheons as Aphrodite and Isis, respectively. The warlike qualities are reduced in these instances (and in Ancient Greece carried on with the image of Athena, who also bears the owls that are symbolic of Ishtar), and both Goddesses are played up in their connection to sensitivity and amorous love, perhaps due to the increasingly peaceful nature of civilization. As culture becomes less desperate and more focused on mutual understanding, the nature of the Goddess and her gifts of survival become less horrific. Greek culture had a creature called the Lamia who served much the same purpose as the Lilitu of ancient times, a cruel and sexually obsessed beast. The Lamia were known for ravaging humans for their sexual energy as well as seeking to eat the flesh of children. In many ways, as the Goddess became kinder and less bloodthirsty, the villanous aspects of Her were continuously represented in these demonic female creatures who thrived on the night-time prooduction of sexual energy. Connected to the Goddess' unending cup of kindness is the error of want that is hungry for the errant and fallen dreams of man and woman alike.
A gruesome myth is reflected in this story. Some believe that the earliest states of humanity were completely brutal and violent, with humans living cannibalistically and consuming one another for energy. It is believed that the early lords of man were deeply connected to the sexual current of power in the world, and that the Goddess in some way is symbolic of the tapping into that current. These readings of the myths of Inanna see her as interrupting a conspiracy of blood-drinking, cannibalistic high priests who dominated humanity like cattle. She managed to attain power and use her authority to benefit humanity with knowledge and a way out of pyramidal slavery, but thus was acheived through suffering and certainly no easy victory. It could be that her son (Tammuz, Horus, Christ) is the key to the alchemical union, a living product of humanity and divinity that in many versions of the myth must carry on his mother's suffering, at times for the sake of human good.

THE COSMIC CRUCIFIXION

Interestingly, in the Norse pantheon, Nanna is the wife of Balder, who is the Christ figure (the son of a God who dies due to the mechanations of a devil-like figure... the whole world is said to have wept at Balder's death) of that belief system. Suffering seems to be a constant necessary fact of living in this world, and often the Goddess and her loved ones suffer immensely for their actions in favor of sharing knowledge and love with humanity. Just as Lilith sends erotic thoughts and fantasies through dreams, Ishtar/Inanna sends knowledge and thoughts of sympathy and understanding during slumber. She rules the night and it reflects her passions. The Sumerians believed that Inanna gave them all of the things necessary for civilization including the awareness of speech, reading, art, agriculture, all forms of communication and sharing, the attributes that elevate humanity beyond animalistic desire... there are similar stories in India of a Goddess incarnation known as Sarasvati who brought similar gifts to humanity, elevating us from the simian level and educating our species for a life beyond slavery during a pivotal juncture in human development.

"At your battle-cry, my lady, the foreign lands bow low. When humanity comes before you in awed silence at the terrifying radiance and tempest, you grasp the most terrible of all the divine powers. Because of you, the threshold of tears is opened, and people walk along the path of the house of great lamentations."

Her gifts are the power of feminine sexuality and the awareness of self. When opened to the light of awareness, superstition and phobia become illuminations of ones own fears. There are no barriers with Her, but there is a journey of strength and understanding that comes with an awareness of suffering. As the pain of birth is reflected in every waking moment, so is Her kindness, Her love, Her understanding, Her infinite fury, Her infinite wisdom, potency, and sense of awareness. She is a union between the spiritual and natural world that defines humanity's very existence, and if there is any meaning to be found in the pain of this world, Her story has given us the key to unlocking it.



josephthomasgates@gmail.com

We Are Your Friends

CALLING OCCUPANTS OF INTERPLANETARY CRAFT

"The primary duty of the Seraphim is to sing without ceasing- 'the lintels of the doors were moved at the voice (of them) who cried to one another.'" - from the book "Beyond Space" by Fr. Pascal P. Parente



LIFE WITHOUT KAREN

It is 2012. The home of the Carpenters, the illustrious musical family who stuck to their roots in Downey, California to worldwide acclaim, is in disrepair. The parents, who were the owners of the worldly and palatial estate, have been dead for some time now. Beautiful Karen Carpenter, the guardian angel of adult contemporary pop music, died in this house, in her brother's closet, long ago. Movies were made, tribute albums wrought upon the Earth, and multitudes of fans have visited the spot. Her brother, Richard Carpenter, now tours the world with a "sound-alike" of Karen from South America named Claire De La Fuente. She doesn't look anything like Karen (who could?), but she does a mean vocal imitation of our girl, and the audiences enjoy it. All over the world.
But Karen is gone. And her brother cannot bring her back, no matter how many times he re-records the bridge to "Top Of The World," or tweaks the back-up vocals on "Lovelines." The only evidence of her existence left behind for us now are the recordings, the photographs, the memories.

"In your mind you have capacities, you know, to telepath messages through the vast unknown. Please close your eyes, and concentrate, with every thought you think, upon the recitation we are about to sing." - Carpenters, "Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft."



SARAPH (To Burn)

The music that Karen and Richard Carpenter created together during the lifetime of the former is an extraordinary accomplishment. This accomplishment is sometimes overshadowed by the shocking nature of Karen's unfortunate demise at the young age of 32. Her passing was greatly sensationalized, used by major media outlets to promote the realities of anorexia nervosa. This was a heretofore unknown eating disorder stemming from negative body image, disproportionate to one's actual appearance. Unfortunately, her death and illness has come for many to define this amazing woman, who accomplished great things in her life during a time when women (in the music industry and elsewhere) did not have an equal status to men. Beyond her rich, syrupy voice and natural beauty, Karen was an extremely talented drummer who was acknowledged by fellow percussionists such as Buddy Rich and Hal Blaine for her impressive intuitive drumming skill. While her older brother showed great talent as a keyboard prodigy (leading him to spend several harsh semesters on the East Coast at Yale studying the instrument), she played baseball with the local boys, favoring the position of pitcher. Her youthful desires to play music alongside her brother were encouraged by their teacher in Downey, California. He attempted to teach her to play the glockenspiel, but she found the instrument to be less than inspiring. She quickly switched to drums after being observed on the instrument by a mutual friend, who recognized her natural sense of rhythm. Karen and Richard were heavily inspired by popular music of the day in their music-kaing, in particular the Beatles. The singing/songwriting duo of John Lennon and Paul McCartney would prove to be an enormous influence on Richard. He wished to create a musical group with his sister that could have the same sort of appeal as those Liverpudlian cultural avatars. Due to his prodigious talent, Richard was enthusiastically encouraged to perform and write music by his parents, studying and practicing constantly. He was fascinated with the concept of "musical arrangement" from a very young age, after seeing a television special starring Liberace (the 1960s heartthrob to the Pepsodent crowd). Liberace's glamour had a huge impression on Richard. Although he was musically influenced somewhat by the "acid rock" of the day, the spirit of showmanship exhibited in what became the Carpenters shows great influence from the campy and eager presentation presented by Liberace. In his determination to be a success in the music industry, Karen's brother was already taking notes from popular performances even in his youth. With Karen on the drums, they formed the Richard Carpenter Trio with a friend of theirs playing the bass. It was a learning experience, but did not bring them much success or attention. It was during this period of time that a local LA musician named Joe Osborn noticed Karen's amazing vocal talents, encouraging Richard to allow her more opportunities to use her voice. Initially starting out as a more rock-oriented group called Spectrum, they teamed up with songwriter John Bettis to embark upon a series of demo recordings. These tapes would be consistently rejected by the various labels that they were sent to, but the process of recording and editing the tapes was invaluable experience for the young musicians. These were very experimental recordings, with Karen playing drums alongside her brother's instrumentation... very likely incredible material that has been lost to time.
The two consistently refined and restructured their approach as Spectrum, but each subsequent appeal to record labels was rejected. An unfortunate side effect of this was that the young musicians became extremely discouraged with their tapes, which eventually were discarded and in fact (accidentally) destroyed. It was obvious that Spectrum's style was not going to work out for the duo, but they were not daunted in their quest for domination of the pop charts. The two began to practice constantly, with Richard hurriedly searching for the right songs that would propel the duo to the top. He eventually settled on a theme of choosing already successful songs from other songwriters, which he would arrange and interpret for Karen to put lead vocals and possibly drums over. This setup, with Richard as the "man behind the curtain" and Karen as the face of the group, suited the duo perfectly. The secret weapon was Karen's magnificent, lush voice. People who watched her sing would comment that they heard emitting from the the scrappy teenager's tiny frame a world of emotion that was said to be "far beyond her years." Under the direction of her brother, Karen eased into the role of singer with the relaxed attitude of a pro, laying down many hours of music to tape in an effort to hit the big time. Her brother's work ethic fit perfectly with Karen's deep-rooted desire to be the best she could be. In the meantime, Richard got work performing with co-songwriter John Bettis at the original Disneyland in Florida as official "street performers." The two would deviate somewhat from the expected material and ramble into pop music territory - in the process developing the squeaky-clean pop-star image and presentation that the Carpenters would become famous for. Richard's friend John would become an important and vital aspect of the Carpenters, co-writing some of the songs that are most dear to the group ("Goodbye To Love," "I Need To Be In Love"). Leaving behind the psychedelic trappings of their early work, Richard, Karen, John, and several other musicians created a new backdrop for Karen's amazing vocal presence, this time called simply "Carpenters." The music of the Carpenters (including such hits as "We've Only Just Begun," "Top Of The World," "Close To You," "Superstar," "We've Only Just Begun," and a multitude of others) would become an iconic, generation-defining force that would define the lives of many lonely souls.

"Electronic voice phenomena (EVP) are electronically generated noises that resemble speech, but are not the result of intentional voice recordings or renderings. Common sources of EVP include static, stray radio transmissions, and background noise. Interest in the subject normally surrounds claims that EVP are of paranormal origin, though there are natural explanations such as apophenia (finding significance in insignificant phenomena), auditory pareidolia (interpreting random sounds as voices in their own language), equipment artifacts, or simple hoaxes which are offered to explain them. Recordings of EVP are often created from background sound by increasing the gain (i.e. sensitivity) of the recording equipment" - From the Wikipedia entry on Electronic Voice Phenomenon.



After rejecting several previous demo tapes from the Carpenters, Herb Alpert (former leader of the Tijuana Brass Band) of A & M Records liked the new direction and signed the group to his label. Part of the groups transformation included pressure on Karen to lose weight after an early producer of theirs (Joe Osborn) referred to Karen as "chubby." Under pressure from the label and her parents, Karen was put on a diet (ominously called the "Stillman diet") that reduced her weight from a healthy 145 pounds to a health-defying 95 lbs. Even before her success, Karen was put under an immense pressure to lose weight, which would have deep psychological implications for her life. The initial Carpenters LP was titled "Offering," later to be re-titled "Ticket To Ride" after it's sole hit, a somber meditation on the classic Beatles tune. The arrangement of their version was completely unique, with Karen's distinctive vocals a stark presence over a slowed-down and intricate arrangement of the upbeat classic. Listeners were impressed with the unorthodox arrangement and highly ornate orchestration (courtesy of Richard), and equally they were impressed by the soulful and emotive voice of Karen. The two had found a formula that would make sense for them, throughout their career interpreting a variety of other songwriters' work in order to express their own unique voice. The first two Carpenters LPs contain some of the finest examples of Karen's drumming on tape (although it does not make up for the fact that the material that they made as Spectrum seems to have been lost to time). After the success of the single version of "Ticket To Ride," Karen and Richard followed that up with their breakthrough second LP, titled "Close To You." This record also features four songs co-written by Richard with his friend John Bettis, with whom he used to work at Disneyland. Over the years, the album has proven to have a lasting appeal, going far beyond the cultural zeitgeist it captured during its initial heyday.
The LP opens with "We've Only Just Begun," a slow-paced ballad that sets the tone for the prevailing image of the Carpenters, presented by the A&M publicity team as existing somewhere between being a married couple and identical twins. Richard had heard the song in a wedding-themed bank commercial, and had a feeling that it could be a successful track for the group to cover. He was right. The song, written by Roger Nichols and Paul Williams, presents a romantic take on the concept of life's long and lonely road, extolling the possibilities that arise when partnering through life with another person. This would be a long-running theme with the songs that were chosen for Karen to perform. In fact, Karen very rarely (if ever) was allowed to choose the material that she wished to perform, although there are several instances (such as their version of the song "Rainbow Connection") where she put her foot down and said that she just didn't like the song. For the most part, Karen found herself doing what she was told in order to make the people around her happy. Not only was it making them happy, however, but it was also making them a lot of money. Another notable track is a Richard Carpenter/John Bettis ditty called "Mr. Guder," which is a completely undisguised diss track dedicated to their former boss at Disneyland. The Carpenters were not above burning a few bridges in their newfound path toward success. The lyrics extrapolate on the issues that the two men shared against their former employer, depicting him as an Ahrimanic entity seeking to turn people into automatons. The track uses an interesting multi-tracking technique during a vocal section in the middle that is similar in tone to the 1960s work of the New York street performer Moondog. Karen's voice combined with Richard's vocal arrangements and production often created a bombastic, pop-operatic production style that would go on to be a great influence on experimental rock groups like Queen and Pink Floyd (see the vocal production on "A Night At The Opera" and "The Wall" for instance compared to the earliest material by those groups). Karen was adept at recording her voice to tape in a manner that seemed to come as natural as breathing, but it was the result of tireless efforts in the studio, including many pieces that never made the final cut. Another significant track on the album is the group's original tune "Crescent Noon," an eerie piece about the transformation of the seasons. Karen sings these words that Bettis wrote for her to sing:
"Green September turned October brown.
Bare November led to December's frozen ground.
The seasons stumble 'round;
our drifting lives are bound to a falling crescent noon."
The record closes with a more up-tempo number called "Another Song," which closes the album with an uncharacteristic rhythm driven psychedelic-influenced rocker. It shows off some great drumming and tight musicianship in an uncharacteristic style, perhaps more like some of the material that they had recorded as Spectrum. The album pushed the group directly into the limelight with hit after hit climbing up the charts. The public couldn't believe the immense power emitting from the diminuative frontwoman of this tight and professional ensemble. The Carpenters' music had become so ubiquitous that there was a huge demand to know what was behind the group. The "bread and butter" clean-cut sort of attitude that the two had inherited from their parents was strikingly absent of irony or pretentiousness. In particular, Karen's personality shone brightly in interviews, as star-struck reporters asked her if she enjoyed her new-found fame: "Oh yeah. It's a kick. At times, it's just a little...well, you have to walk very fast! sometimes you just want to go out, go down the corner and buy a hamburger. But you really can't do that. That gets me sometimes not being able to walk around on my own! Sometimes you get tired of being protected 24 hours a day but..."
It was apparent that all eyes were on Karen from the very beginning, as her powerful spirit was fiercely evident in all aspects of the group. From her otherworldly and uncommon beauty to her intoxicating singing voice and intuitive smarts, Karen seemed like she could conquer the world: "For myself, when I decided what I wanted to do, I went ahead and did it. Nobody got in the way. If they did, you had to figure out a way to get around them. I think anybody who has enough self respect and enough brains can do what they want to do and the bit about blaming it on somebody else is just garbage! There's nobody that's going to stand in the way of somebody if they really want it - male or female!... Its stupid you know, just because you're a girl...so what?... We've got as much brains as anybody else. You see a lot of dumb guys around too! This bit about me being a successful girl drummer. I'm not a successful GIRL drummer, I'm just a drummer that happens to be a girl that's happy! I have a ball!"

"Although she has been successful in what is generally considered a man's field (drumming) she has little patience for "women's lib" and feels it's a wife's duty to cook for husband, because, 'Well, I like to cook. And just look at him,' pointing to her brother, 'he can't even cook water. . . just say that I certainly plan to cook for my husband.'" - Karen, quoted in The Washington Post in a 1973 article titled WHOLESOME IMAGE NO PUT-ON FOR POPULAR CARPENTERS.



Coming out of the turbulence of the 1960s and the Vietnam War era, American pop music in the late 1960s had moved toward a more raw and protest oriented sound (not unlike the "grunge" era of the 1990s that followed the initial Gulf War, under former CIA director George Herbert Walker Bush). Blues-rock and mod were the styles that were hip in the UK, more so than the sort of pop being peddled by the Carpenters. Songwriters like Burt Bacharach (who penned "Close To You" and other massively successful Carpenters songs, along with fellow hebrewish man Hal David) couldn't get arrested for their efforts. The Carpenters changed this, with Richard adeptly utilizing a dinosaur-like record industry's rules against itself to buck the norm, and in the process made a great deal of money for himself and A&M. A large part of this sales effort came from the fact that the group had been molded into shape and sold in such a manner as to be completely inoffensive pop music, theoretically from a couple of wholesome teenagers. Despite the sunny image of the Carpenters, the content of most of their songs actually dealt with the issues of severe depression and loneliness. The "perfect" appearance of the group was pushed as a major selling point, appealing to a desire to return to the suburban values of the 1950s. America wished that it could turn back the clock on the acid-drenched preceding years, and the Carpenters seemed to be the perfect solution. The group had come to represent a movement back toward a time that never actually existed, with the siblings coming to represent an impossible-to-attain perfection that seemed to be the goal of that era. Richard Nixon invited the group to perform at the White House for a dinner with the leader of West Germany, declaring that the musicians represented "the best that young America has to offer." The group came to represent the wholesome values that Nixon wished to actively associate himself with. Although Nixon's White House would soon come under attack for participating in espionage and mafia-like behavior, Karen and her brother continued to flourish as some of the most influential and popular entertainers of their time.

"Calling occupants of interplanetary craft... you've been observing our Earth, and we'd like to make a contact with you. We are your friends." - Carpenters.

Throughout all of this newfound fame, Karen and Richard's mother Agnes was careful to guide them through the trials and tribulation of success. She encouraged them to invest in local real estate, and they used the money from their first two hit singles to purchase a pair of apartment complexes in Downey. Everyone in town knew the family and was well-aware of their worldwide success, but for the most part Karen did her best to continue a normal existence in her hometown. She was known for frequenting a local Bob's Big Boy restaurant (she loved the black bean soup there, and she was a prolific imbiber of iced tea). Even after becoming wealthy and famous, Karen would always do her own shopping, whether it was for home appliances or clothing from a thrift store. She remained, at heart, a small-town girl, partially because she was discouraged by her mother from pursuing a desire to move to Los Angeles. She would spend her entire life as a resident of Downey, where she lived an ideal suburban existence that rivaled that of the fictional Cleaver family. Far from living in seclusion, the famous family continued to throw parties for the neighborhood at Karen and Richard's parents house. Karen was known for her fun-loving, even rambunctuous behavior, excited to cut-up like a teenager in the presence of company. Karen always put her best face forward, and despite some difficulties with her mother (including many disagreements about who she was allowed to spend time with) she always wanted to make everyone happy. Throughout the 1970s, the Carpenters made several television specials, as well as a multitude of appearances on a variety of television programs (including a memorable spot on ultra-creepy proto-reality show "This Is Your Life"). Richard's great talent and enthusiasm always shined during the mostly lip-synched performances, but it was Karen who America would become enamored with. Her large, beautiful brown eyes sparkled with an angelic radiance, and she read words from a cue card like she was speaking off the top of her head. It was clear that Karen had the face and personality of a "superstar." The bulk of the pressure on the duo's physical appearance would weigh upon her. Richard began to grow tired of the 'schtick' that him and his sister would perform in the specials, a sickly-sweet dramatization of often supposedly true events of their lives, delivered in a schmaltzy, Lawrence Welk-like manner. Nonetheless, audiences ate it up, and Karen became one of the most watched performers of her day, an otherworldly beauty, with an unforgettable voice.
Karen and Richard had a lot more up their flowing silk sleeves than a bunch of showtunes written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, however. Richard knew how to play the game, and he adeptly participated in the A&M marketing machine, while still maintaining a bit of artistic independence. The two were frank and easy-going in interviews, both openly declaring their opinion that marijuana should be legalized ("It's no worse than alcohol," said Karen in a People Magazine article from 1976) and maintaining that their main focus was on music and not making any kind of statement. The group recorded what would be two of their most successful releases, the self-titled "Carpenters" LP and "A Song For You." Both of these albums venture into a country/Americana sort of sound, and contain some of the most recognizable hits that the band ever produced (including the massively popular Leon Russell-written ballad "Superstar"). "Superstar" would become a Carpenters anthem, with Karen's lead vocal pleading to a rock star to come back to her, plaintively asking "Don't you remember when you told me you loved me, baby? You'd said you'd be coming back this way again, maybe..." Interestingly, because of a concern over the audience being unable to separate the performer from the song, Richard changed a line so that instead of singing that she can't wait to "sleep" with her lover again, she says she can't wait to "be" with them. There is much speculation that Karen's mother Agnes (who was a devout Christian) would have been upset with the notion of Karen singing about pre-marital sex. Even into adulthood, Karen was forced to report to her mother, and placed under intense scrutiny, especially after the onset of stardom. The fact that the words that were chosen for her to sing were so intricately analyzed and weighed upon each other shows the immense control that others had over Karen's life and performance. The song "Rainy Days and Mondays" would typify her appeal to the masses, taking clinical depression and condensing it to a three-minute catchy bit of purchasable pop. She seemed to be singing what many women and men in America were already thinking, and A&M Records and Karen's family were riding her emotions to the "Top Of The World" in financial success. By the time of the album "Now And Then" (which was, in fact, given its name by their mother Agnes), Karen was no longer a singing drummer but a bona fide frontwoman to one of the worlds most successful musical ensembles.

UNDER PRESSURE

1974 sent the Carpenters on a tour across the entire planet Earth. "Goodbye To Love," with its surprisingly powerful arrangement (including an uncharacteristic electric guitar solo) became another enormous hit for the group, crossing over somewhat with rock and metal audiences. Critics coined the term "power ballad" to describe the intensity of the track. Guitarist Tony Peluso thought that a friend of his was pulling a prank when he had received a phone call from "Karen Carpenter" asking for him to lay down an electric guitar track for an upcoming single from her group the Carpenters. It seemed like at this point that the group were completely unstoppable, steamrolling through the charts in the early 1970s with the force of a great white shark. So many people were depending on Karen and putting pressure on her that it began to take its toll, however. In a strike back for independence, she began to noticeably fluctuate in her physical weight, at times appearing unhealthily thin. Also during this time, Karen began to seek outside influences beyond her overbearing mother and the record label system that her brother's loyalties sided with. She became friends with people such as Dionne Warwick (whom she greatly looked up to before becoming a star herself) and the goddess-like disco maven Olivia Newton-John. The presence of these other famous ladies was a warm and positive influence on Karen's life, and provided for her what must have been an oasis of calm and support. Her mother was still controlling of her life during this time, however, and tended to view Karen's newfound friendships with suspicion. In the meantime, Karen and Richard held an almost militaristic level of band meetings and practice sessions, desperate to keep the Carpenters machine operating. Karen's deep and intense self-control was a focused energy that she emitted from her body during live performance.

"The Beatles, who incorporated the techniques of concrète into their recordings, were responsible for popularizing the concept of backmasking. Singer John Lennon and producer George Martin both claimed they discovered the backward recording technique during the recording of 1966's Revolver; specifically the album tracks "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "I'm Only Sleeping," and the single "Rain". Lennon stated that, while under the influence of marijuana, he accidentally played the tapes for "Rain" in reverse, and enjoyed the sound. The following day he shared the results with the other Beatles, and the effect was used first in the guitar solo for "Tomorrow Never Knows", and later in the coda of "Rain"." - from the Wikipedia entry on Backmasking (Redirected from Backwards Message).

The Carpenters next released a record titled "Horizon," the cover of which depicted the duo among a stark rocky landscape, mirroring the emotional terrain dealt with inside. Reviewed poorly upon its initial release, tracks such as "Solitaire" and "Desperado" have stood the test of time as poignant and gripping ballads about human emotion. Both of those tracks examine an emotionally barren person trying to love after a series of deadening events. It seemed that the joy and excitement of early fame had given way to an intense sadness, an emptiness represented by a strong distance from others that both Karen and Richard were both feeling at the time. One of the more upbeat tracks, the synthesizer-filled "Happy," showed a potential futuristic direction that the Carpenters would dabble with but unfortunately never fully explore. The album did not share the enormous success of the previous efforts. The group found that their own track record was stark competition, and they were unable to regain the immense relevance and popularity that took them over the top at the beginning of the decade. The seams were beginning to show in the Carpenter empire with both siblings experiencing personal strife and turmoil. Karen was increasingly looking for an outlet for her own personal voice, while still pleasing the people around her. Unfortunately, some of those who she wished to please did not have her well-being in mind.

"The name Seraphim clearly indicates their ceaseless and eternal revolution about Divine Principles; their heat and their keenness, the exuberance of their intense, perpetual, tireless activity, and their elevative and energetic assessment of those below, kindling them and firing them to their own heat, and wholly purifying them by a burning and all-consuming flame, and by the unhidden, unquenchable, changeless, radiant, and enlightening power, dispelling and destroying the shadows of darkness." - Pseudo-Dionysus the Aeropagite, "On The Divine Names, On The Celestial Hierarchies."

1976 brought "A Kind Of Hush," an innocuous record from the group that saw them covering a Herman's Hermits hit from the 1960s as the title track. Richard was determined to keep the group a successful hit machine by any means necessary at this point, and Karen would be dragged along through the process due to her necessary presence as the star. Although Richard sang lead on a couple of songs from the self-titled "Carpenters" record, it simply was not a Carpenters record for real without the dominant vocal presence of Karen. At this point, she was all but forbidden to play the drums, constantly finding herself lip-synching the same songs over and over for various promotional appearances and publicity junkets. Increasingly, the group found themselves less relevant with each year going further into the more liberal era of the late 1970s. Jimmy Carter's America was becoming more enthralled with cocaine, disco music, and New York culture than the "peace and love" good California vibes that the Carpenters came to represent. This album contained a song that Karen would count as her favorite Carpenters track, a ballad co-written by her brother and Bettis called "I Need To Be In Love." It is a sad and lonely track of searching for an unattainable love that seems to define the aura of heartbreak surrounding the work of the Carpenters. It was a personal success for the group, but, unfortunately, did not translate into the astronomical record sales that the group was seeking. Richard regrouped his efforts for one last push towards success with a slightly experimental approach in song choices. Although this effort did not equal the success that he perhaps was aiming for, it did make for one of the strangest albums that the Carpenters were to create, titled simply "Passage."

"Some EVP enthusiasts describe hearing the words in EVP as an ability, much like learning a new language. Skeptics say that the claimed instances are all either hoaxes or misinterpretations of natural phenomena. EVP and ITC are seldom researched within the scientific community and, as ideas, are generally derided by scientists when asked." - From the Wikipedia entry on Electronic Voice Phenomenon.

While other groups were topping the charts with disco or punk-inspired material, Richard stuck to what he did best: complex and ornate arrangements of saccharine pop balladry. He definitely knew how to pick an interesting track for Karen to sing, and the choices that top this one are rather curious. "Passage" shows Richard trying out some arrangements of musical styles not usually broached by the duo, including light-jazz and calypso. An overlong cover of "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" is fiercely out of place, and paints a tragic picture of Karen that her brother very possibly saw coming in some capacity. He had certainly noticed her rapidly decreasing weight and related health problems, puzzled that she seemed to be intentionally avoiding nutrition. During family dinners and meals away from home, Karen had become adept at finding ways to avoid eating the food on her plate, including giving it away to others at the table and hiding portions to be disposed of later. She appeared to be headed down an unhealthy path, but no one around her could seem to get close enough to help. Coinciding with an increasing interest in the subject of extra-terrestrial visitation to Earth, the Carpenters released the single "Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft." The track, and the accompanying video, feature the duo pleading to extraterrestrial intelligences to bring justice to the Earth and destroy the "adversaries" of the Carpenters. The song has an intricate orchestral arrangement that shows great care and effort, but it failed to connect with American audiences, who could not at all relate to what the duo was laying down before them. It seemed that the group was being sincere in their way, but they were not creating the sort of material that the public wanted. The Carpenters made their way through another television special called "Space Encounters," banking not only on the recent single but also the current (at the time) popularity of sci-fi films Star Wars and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. Literal-minded audiences who had embraced the saccharine flavor of "Top Of The World" and "Close To You" could simply not relate to hearing the same group sing about attempting psychic communicating with extraterrestrial entities. Karen's vocal performance presents the subject calmly and seriously, intoning matter-of-factly to the listener the process of telepathy: "With your mind, you have ability to form and transmit thought energy far beyond the norm. You close your eyes, you concentrate, together that's the way..."

"The term Instrumental Trans-Communication (ITC) was coined by Ernst Senkowski in the 1970s to refer more generally to communication through any sort of electronic device such as tape recorders, fax machines, television sets or computers between spirits or other discarnate entities and the living. One particularly famous claimed incidence of ITC occurred when the image of EVP enthusiast Friedrich Jürgenson (whose funeral was held that day) was said to have appeared on a television in the home of a colleague, which had been purposefully tuned to a vacant channel. ITC enthusiasts also look at TV and video camera feedback loop of the Droste effect." - From the Wikipedia entry on Electronic Voice Phenomenon.

MAL'AKH (The Messenger)

Deeply concerned with his sister's health, and the groups faltering status as pop royalty (along with his own personal concerns), Richard soon committed himself to a rehabilitation program for an addiction to Quaaludes. While Karen had her own health issues, he had been harboring heavy Quaalude use throughout the previous years in order to maintain himself during the periods of high stress. After their initial breakthrough success, the duo had purchased two large apartment complexes and Richard had been staying in one throughout their fame. Karen had been kept under more control, with the mother Agnes seeming to be harshly judgmental of her and unhappy with her friendships. She was especially controlling over Karen's friendship with other women, and was threatened by the influence that the successful artists she was hanging out with had over her. For these and other reasons, Karen was forbidden to move away from home until the age of 26. Karen's father was loving and understanding during all of this, but Agnes Carpenter ruled the house and had extreme jurisdiction over many of the choices that Karen was allowed to make. Although Karen's lack of identification with the "women's lib" movement on one hand shows her independence, but also it is likely that if she had been exposed to feminist literature she would likely be alive today. As an unmarried and "unspoiled" female child of strict, she was held under lock and key by her family, with Richard being encouraged to have almost complete control over Karen's every artistic decision. The two met every morning in a militaristic regimen for an "o'eight-hundred" breakfast where Richard would discuss the important matters of the day with Karen, who would sometimes grow weary of the constant control. Because of the deep love and respect that she had for her family and their values, she had allowed them to dictate her life for her well into adulthood.
A good example of this dynamic is Karen's short-lived marriage to real-estate magnate Tom Burris. Burris was an opportunistic man who was introduced to Karen by her family as a man that she needed to meet. Karen often sings in her music of having a romance that could last the test of time, and marriage was a childhood dream that she had always hoped to fulfill. Burris took her on a "whirlwind romance," proposing to her and offering her the picket fence existence that she dreamed of. She wanted to have children and be a homemaker for a nice man, and Burris offered to provide this for her. Unfortunately for Karen, he was simply an opportunistic person who was manipulating her emotions, like so many others around her. He lied about his affluence, constantly hitting her up for tens of thousands of dollars to make up for failed investments. To add insult to injury, he revealed several weeks before their scheduled marriage that he had lied about his intentions to have children with Karen. Less than a month before their wedding day, he revealed to her that he had a vasectomy and was unable to father children. She felt completely betrayed by Burris and those who had influenced her to submit to his control. She told her mother that she wanted to cancel the ceremony, and she responded by telling Karen that it was going to happen no matter what. The cameras were coming, "People magazine would be there," and the wedding was happening whether she liked it or not. Karen was forced to endure a sham for the benefit of the "good face" of her family and their interests. She was forced to swear loyalty a man who cared not one iota for her. They would be separated only one year and some months later, with an irate Burris yelling at her family that "you can have her!" He showed up to her funeral only to throw his ring into her coffin before the beginning of the ceremony. She looked incredibly beautiful throughout the ridiculous charade.
Karen, meanwhile, sought to expand her artistry to more adult concerns than those which the Carpenters had become associated with. She had grown distant from her family, feeling controlled by a domineering mother who always treated Karen as being inferior to her industrious and talented older brother. Although she felt independent of it, Karen was defined in the eyes of her family and the world by her gender. She sought to overcome the control over her life by traveling to New York and working on a solo record with producer Phil Ramone. She had agreed also to seek treatment for her eating disorder, which had at this point caused her to collapse on-stage and exhibit drastic changes in her physical appearance. Artistically, however, she greatly flourished during this period, managing to put together a phenomenally powerful solo debut record with a strong disco flavor. Along with having a great professional repoire with producer Ramone, she became very close friends with his wife Ichi Ramone during this time. Ichi would continue to be a good friend to Karen all the way to the end of her life. Noticeably, many of the songs featured an unexpected sexuality to them, an aspect of the album which would prove incredibly controversial to A&M executives (and her brother) once she tried to release it. During the beginning of the recording sessions for the record, Karen returned home to Downey briefly and played the tracks she had worked on for her mother Agnes. Both of Karen's parents fiercely disapproved of the overtly sexual lyrics to the music, and when she returned to the studio to resume recording she had dropped to 80 pounds. It seemed that the disapproval of her parents had a great effect on her physical well-being. The sessions for the record were very successful, and Karen recounted the time she spent working on it as the happiest time of her life, but meanwhile her physical appearance was growing more and more disturbing to those around her, clearly Karen was not nourishing herself. "Karen Carpenter" is an impressive record, the release of which would have made a great transition into solo artistry and future relevance for Karen, but the forces around her simply would not allow this to happen.

"It depends what the girl wants and if she wants it bad enough. She can figure it out for herself if she's going to stick to it. And if a guy is really in love with her, he would stick with her. I mean, if a guy was really hung up on a chick... like if a chick wanted to do something really bad, the guy would give of himself and let the chick do what she wants. That's only natural." - Karen on relationships.

After a listening party for the record in New York (accompanied by supportive friends and co-workers in the recording industry), Karen very confidently returned to California to face the scrutiny of label executives for A&M. Herb Alpert and Richard Carpenter stared ahead unemotionally as each song went by. The two men fed off each other's coldness and indifference to Karen's warm and beautiful music that she had created without either of their input. They cruelly disregarded her efforts, pretending to dislike the album because of a supposed lack of quality. This is laughable, considering that both men cannibalized the release for years to come after the death of Karen, endlessly remixing many of the tracks from the release to appear on a multitude of posthumous "Carpenters" records. What they did not like was Karen's fierce independence, which they sought to crush under their heels so that they could continue to use her to increase their own fame and wealth. Executives at A&M and Richard canned the record, sending Karen out of the room in tears. It is possible that she never recovered from the incident, a stone-cold reminder that she was under the yoke of people who had no interest in letting her be her own woman. New A&M employee Quincey Jones offered to add some remixing to the record, believing that it should be released, but his suggestions were ignored. He later created the "Thriller" album with Michael Jackson, one of the most successful pop recordings in the history of the music industry. She was charged $400,000 for the cost of the record, an amount of money that was levied against future Carpenters royalties, putting increased pressure on her from her family and the label to return to the unattainable success of the first Carpenters music, in order to catch up with what her controllers deemed an immense financial mistake. The emotional damage had been done, and by the next television appearances, Karen had become a skeletal shadow of her former self. She was put on an intravenous drip at a California hospital that unnaturally increased her weight by twenty pounds in an attempt to make her better.
On the day that she died, Karen had an argument with her mother over wanting to spend the weekend hanging out with Olivia Newton-John. Karen, who lived with her parents until the age of 26, died in the closet of her brothers childhood bedroom. She was staying in that room because there was a VHS player in there, and she enjoyed watching tapes of dramatic television programs, such as Magnum P.I. (a crime drama starring Tom Selleck). She had spent a night escaping into entertainment, and then she walked into the closet, laid down peacefully facing the ground, and allowed her heart to stop beating. Her mother found her unconscious, passed out from heart failure without any sign of struggle. Her eyes were wide open and she was unclothed, facing the carpet. Karen's spirit had left her mortal form just shortly before her 33rd birthday. Her body had given up. Karen again made international headlines, but this time those words of news brought intense sorrow to her legions of fans and supporters.

Many have wondered how this could have happened to someone with paid body-gaurds around them and a severely overprotective family dynamic. There were a lot of people around Karen who noticed that she was not eating. They told her that she needed to eat. That she needed to nourish her body. She made her body weak through malnourishment. She didn't dislike food, some of her favorite dishes were black bean soup and a nice big hamburger from Bob's Big Boy with a shake. According to an interview, she "detests water." She was very opinionated about her body as well, and had strong opinions regarding whether or not she looked good. Because of this, she would starve herself or take on unhealthy habits in order to obtain a never attainable "perfect weight" that she felt pressured to achieve. When anyone wanted to try and intervene, she protested intensely, knowing exactly what she wanted. She was a powerful, forceful woman in many ways, just like her mother. She stood her ground and got what she wanted in most situations that did not involve her family, and although she was not closed minded she was indeed determined. She looked the way she wanted, whether or not it was what she needed. In reality, she felt completely malnourished of what she felt that she truly needed, her deepest desire that she sang about so often. The words ring true because she was singing the truth. What she needed was love, and she felt a million miles away from it.

"Please come in peace, we beseech you... Please interstellar policeman, please give us a sign that we've reached you." - Carpenters.

Previous to Karen's battle with anorexia, there was little public awareness of the existence of "anorexia nervosa." The glamourization (through television and print media) of excessively skinny women, combined with the real-life oppression and silencing of female sexuality, has led to the development of an epidemic of eating disorders that continues to this day. Women, young and old, who have been exposed to the particular manner of body enslavement so peculiar to Western society, are simultaneously discouraged from exploring the sexuality promised them by the unattainable body image. Karen was put under immense pressure to maintain her weight at a particular level by her family and her management, to the point that she could not look into the mirror without seeing something that she was made to feel bad about. When her appearance dipped to a point of a deathly skeletal shade during televised interviews for the "Made In America" record, she had already begun to leave her desires for this life behind her. Because of the way her label and family treated her after she made her solo album, she knew definitively that she would not be allowed to express herself artistically in any true capacity. She faced $400,000 worth of debt for simply taking seriously her status as a recording artist and making high-quality, sellable work. Richard had a lot on his plate to deal with at the time, and was most certainly thinking about his own career for his part. He seems to have regretted his decision somewhat, and when Ichi informed Richard that she had dedicated her solo album to him he broke down in tears on the phone with her. Herb Alpert's selfish decision to not allow Karen to release the "Karen Carpenter" LP most certainly lead to the despair that she felt in those final days. Karen's parents came from a time when women were not expected to do much but cook and clean, and her mother seemed to actively seek to keep Karen in that mindset. Agnes died in 1995, and in 1996 Karen's solo record, featuring songs adult fare such as "Making Love In The Afternoon," was finally released to the public. Agnes Carpenter would never in her lifetime have to deal with the idea of her daughter having an independent adulthood, filled with the desires and imperfections that all people share, her mother included. Whether or not she directly had any part in the withholding of the Karen Carpenter record from the public, it is extremely significant that Richard chose not to release the album until after her death. Although the music was not an enormous departure from the Carpenters, the free and energetic spirit of the album proved that Karen had a side to her that was boldly independent. It sounds completely non-controversial today, but compared to the image that had been cultivated for Karen it was an unacceptable departure. Although things would change drastically for acceptable subject matter by female artists on major labels in the 1990s (see Hole, PJ Harvey, Alanis Morrisette etc), Karen would be forced to suffer as a martyr for the cause of gender equality within pop music. Wishing to protect her from the realities of the world, her mother had cultivated a highly controlled world for her that she ultimately escaped through the wearing out of her physical form. Through this process, a growing awareness of the reality of eating disorders (as well as the negative body image projected in the media, and its affect on women) became public knowledge, likely leading to many women not as famous as Karen whose lives were saved by the awareness and sensitivity generated by the unfortunate example of her death.

"NANCY: Are you close to your parents today?
KAREN: Oh, yes, they're right downstairs." - 1976 interview excerpt

Karen's life was plagued by the good intentions of those around her. The Karen Carpenter solo album contained within it many songs that expressed a vibrant and adult sort of sexuality that both her family and her record label sought to withhold from the public. Beyond this, the record label executives and Richard were afraid that the open sexuality of her solo effort would forever taint the clean and wholesome image that the Carpenters had developed (note that Richard followed up the aborted record by orchestrating Karen into the uncharacteristically patriotic and blander-than-ever "Made In America" record, a blatant attempt at making a money-grubbing appeal to the most common of denominators, blind nationalism and international pro-USA sentiment). "Made In America"'s promotional photos look like a funeral photography, and it proved to be the worst-selling Carpenters LP of all time. Richard would go on to remix and re-present most of the tracks from Karen's solo record, which were repackaged with additional recorded material (and certain parts removed) as new "Carpenters" songs for many years into the future. In the meantime, he has completely continued to disregard the quality her chosen mixes and demos. He continues to remain in denial about her musical and creative contributions to the group, still holding anger towards Karen for her "poor business decisions."



KAREN HITTING THE COSMIC DANCEFLOOR IN STYLE, NEW YORK 1979, SHINING WITH THE STARS, GLITTER AND NIGHT LIFE

Karen lives on through the music that she recorded, much of which is readily available for consumption. Every new generation that discovers her plaintive and haunting voice through the polished presentation given by her brother and the executives at A&M records is invited to a mystery of beauty and sadness. Her constant search, her "Need To Be In Love" was an existential cry for meaning in a world full of deception and hypocrisy, love going beyond the greed and selfishness causes us to judge and hurt one another. The accomplishments that were achieved by Karen during her short life live on in ways that are little understood but widely felt and appreciated. This world is just a station, and at this station we learn to truly "love" and give of ourself in a way that is inclusive of death. Our consciousness is meant to go beyond, to leave behind this shell and traverse the "vast unknown."

All writing by Joseph Gates: josephthomasgates@gmail.com